Socioeconomic Status and Physicians’ Treatment Decisions

Kurt Brekke (), Tor Helge Holmås (), Karin Monstad () and Odd Rune Straume
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Tor Helge Holmås: Uni Rokkan Centre, Postal: Uni Rokkan Centre, Nygårdsgaten 5, N-5015 Bergen, Norway, Health Economics Bergen (HEB), Norway
Karin Monstad: Uni Rokkan Centre, Postal: Uni Rokkan Centre, Nygårdsgaten 5, N-5015 Bergen, Norway, Health Economics Bergen (HEB), Norway

No 12/2015, Discussion Paper Series in Economics from Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper aims at shedding light on the social gradient by studying the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and provision of health care. Using administrative data on services provided by General Practitioners (GPs) in Norway over a …ve year period (2008- 12), we analyse the quantity, composition and value of services provided by the GPs according to patients’SES measured by education, income or ethnicity. Our data allow us to control for a wide set of patient and GP characteristics. To account for (unobserved) heterogeneity, we limit the sample to patients with a speci…c disease, diabetes type 2, and estimate a model with GP …xed e¤ects. Our results show that patients with low SES visit the GPs more often, but the value of services provided per visit is lower. The composition of services varies with SES, where patients with low education and African or Asian ethnicity receive more medical tests but shorter consultations, whereas patients with low income receive both shorter consultations and fewer tests. Thus, our results show that GPs differentiate services according to SES, but give no clear evidence for a social gradient in health care provision.

Keywords: Socio-economic status; Primary care; General Practitioners. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I11 I14 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2015-05-29
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Related works:
Journal Article: Socio‐economic status and physicians' treatment decisions (2018)
Working Paper: Socioeconomic Status and PhysiciansíTreatment Decisions (2015)
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